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Game Fundamentals - The Illusion of Accomplishment
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<blockquote data-quote="Benimoto" data-source="post: 5160696" data-attributes="member: 40093"><p>I'd like to rebut these things point by point for the record, since they're a good example of how misconceptions of 4e drive things down the edition war road.</p><p></p><p>4e does not scale everything by level, and certainly does not do so in the way Diablo does. 4e scales hit points, attack bonus, saving throws (now called defenses) and AC by level. It does so largely in the same way as 3rd edition does, with the exception of AC.</p><p></p><p>Furthermore character depth increases by level (in a non-linear way). To give an example, at 1st level the PCs may be fighting goblins that that take 3 rounds to defeat and at 28th they may be fighting Balors that work similarly, but that's because the Balor is a brute, which is designed to be the simplest part of an encounter. For a contrasting example, look at the Pit Fiend. The Pit Fiend, just by itself (and it's only one part of the encounter) is a flying monster with a damage aura, an attack debuff aura, a minor-action attack that lowers defenses severely, the ability to summon 2-8 more creatures, and fairly standard leader-type and melee-type abilities. So in a typical Pit Fiend encounter, the Pit Fiend will be flying out of melee reach, letting its passive auras damage and debuff most of the party, while spending it's actions both teleporting allies to advantageous positions and severely weakening the defenses of anything that can threaten it. Since it isn't the only part of the encounter, typically the controller it's grouped with will lock down one or two of the PCs with weakened defenses, while the summoned War Devils will move leaders or strikers out of the defender's sphere of influence so that the monster skirmishers can pick them off with little interference. It's a machine that, even if the numbers were appropriate, would generally annihilate 1st level PCs. 1st level PCs lack the resistances, the flight capability, and most importantly the depth of resources needed to take on such a threat.</p><p></p><p>Back to the point-by-point, 4e does have long-term effects in the way of diseases (and the "death penalty" for being raised from the dead). I find these generally last as long as 3e long-term effects such as curses or ability damage, and have most of the same effects (although they are rarer.) What 4e is missing is the fixed-duration medium-term effects, like fear or paralysis, that lasted just long enough to remove a PC from the entire rest of the combat. These aren't missing from the game mechanics entirely, as there's still support for rare effects that last the entire encounter. They're just missing from the standard monster list, and hence from the "culture" that arises from it. (The few effects like this that made it into the MM1, such as the Oni Night Haunter or the Night Hag's sleep effects were treated as errors and erased in game updates.)</p><p></p><p>4e does cure 99% of the conditions in a single long rest, but again in my 3e experience, wands of cure light wounds and a few "remove whatever" scrolls had the same effect. You may have gamed with a group that frowned, or was completely unaware of such things, but that wasn't the system, it was the culture.</p><p></p><p>I had a home campaign for most of 3rd edition, but I also played a lot in RPGA games, typically as a convention judge (as, contrary to what my messageboard persona may project, in person I'm an easygoing, generally entertaining guy with a knack for system mastery and delivering authoritative rulings). In the RPGA games, a sort of "best practices" developed, which involved the continual manufacture, acquisition, and replenishment of items such as cure wands or "remove condition" scrolls. My players played at conventions occasionally too, and would take their favorites of these "best practices" home with them, or find them on message boards such as this one. So even before 4e codified the culture shift against long-term negative effects into the default monster manual monsters, that cultural shift existed in at least some groups.</p><p></p><p>4e does give everyone some self healing, I can't refute that.</p><p></p><p>While you see 4e giving people 'the awesome' at 1st level, I see the designers trying to boost low-level survivability so that players can make characters and immediately become attached. Again reflecting a culture shift away from the harem of interchangeable heroes that some people describe 1e as having and towards having a single, well-developed character from the start. Which is something, that if I'm reading your posts right, I think you support.</p><p></p><p>The complaint again about 4e "fixing the math like Diablo" is, as I mentioned, a mischaracterization of 4e (and arguably not entirely accurate about Diablo even).</p><p></p><p>Your final points, about 4e refreshing powers on an encounter cycle and trying to make everyone's turn have more options and more interaction, etc. I have no particular objection to (but I'll try harder to come up with some if you'd like <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> )</p><p></p><p>Yay for one more wall of text in a wall-of-texty thread. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Benimoto, post: 5160696, member: 40093"] I'd like to rebut these things point by point for the record, since they're a good example of how misconceptions of 4e drive things down the edition war road. 4e does not scale everything by level, and certainly does not do so in the way Diablo does. 4e scales hit points, attack bonus, saving throws (now called defenses) and AC by level. It does so largely in the same way as 3rd edition does, with the exception of AC. Furthermore character depth increases by level (in a non-linear way). To give an example, at 1st level the PCs may be fighting goblins that that take 3 rounds to defeat and at 28th they may be fighting Balors that work similarly, but that's because the Balor is a brute, which is designed to be the simplest part of an encounter. For a contrasting example, look at the Pit Fiend. The Pit Fiend, just by itself (and it's only one part of the encounter) is a flying monster with a damage aura, an attack debuff aura, a minor-action attack that lowers defenses severely, the ability to summon 2-8 more creatures, and fairly standard leader-type and melee-type abilities. So in a typical Pit Fiend encounter, the Pit Fiend will be flying out of melee reach, letting its passive auras damage and debuff most of the party, while spending it's actions both teleporting allies to advantageous positions and severely weakening the defenses of anything that can threaten it. Since it isn't the only part of the encounter, typically the controller it's grouped with will lock down one or two of the PCs with weakened defenses, while the summoned War Devils will move leaders or strikers out of the defender's sphere of influence so that the monster skirmishers can pick them off with little interference. It's a machine that, even if the numbers were appropriate, would generally annihilate 1st level PCs. 1st level PCs lack the resistances, the flight capability, and most importantly the depth of resources needed to take on such a threat. Back to the point-by-point, 4e does have long-term effects in the way of diseases (and the "death penalty" for being raised from the dead). I find these generally last as long as 3e long-term effects such as curses or ability damage, and have most of the same effects (although they are rarer.) What 4e is missing is the fixed-duration medium-term effects, like fear or paralysis, that lasted just long enough to remove a PC from the entire rest of the combat. These aren't missing from the game mechanics entirely, as there's still support for rare effects that last the entire encounter. They're just missing from the standard monster list, and hence from the "culture" that arises from it. (The few effects like this that made it into the MM1, such as the Oni Night Haunter or the Night Hag's sleep effects were treated as errors and erased in game updates.) 4e does cure 99% of the conditions in a single long rest, but again in my 3e experience, wands of cure light wounds and a few "remove whatever" scrolls had the same effect. You may have gamed with a group that frowned, or was completely unaware of such things, but that wasn't the system, it was the culture. I had a home campaign for most of 3rd edition, but I also played a lot in RPGA games, typically as a convention judge (as, contrary to what my messageboard persona may project, in person I'm an easygoing, generally entertaining guy with a knack for system mastery and delivering authoritative rulings). In the RPGA games, a sort of "best practices" developed, which involved the continual manufacture, acquisition, and replenishment of items such as cure wands or "remove condition" scrolls. My players played at conventions occasionally too, and would take their favorites of these "best practices" home with them, or find them on message boards such as this one. So even before 4e codified the culture shift against long-term negative effects into the default monster manual monsters, that cultural shift existed in at least some groups. 4e does give everyone some self healing, I can't refute that. While you see 4e giving people 'the awesome' at 1st level, I see the designers trying to boost low-level survivability so that players can make characters and immediately become attached. Again reflecting a culture shift away from the harem of interchangeable heroes that some people describe 1e as having and towards having a single, well-developed character from the start. Which is something, that if I'm reading your posts right, I think you support. The complaint again about 4e "fixing the math like Diablo" is, as I mentioned, a mischaracterization of 4e (and arguably not entirely accurate about Diablo even). Your final points, about 4e refreshing powers on an encounter cycle and trying to make everyone's turn have more options and more interaction, etc. I have no particular objection to (but I'll try harder to come up with some if you'd like ;) ) Yay for one more wall of text in a wall-of-texty thread. :) [/QUOTE]
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